GhidraMCP: AI-Powered Binary Analysis Through Natural Language

Stop context-switching between Ghidra's interface and your analysis notes. GhidraMCP bridges your favorite reverse engineering tool with AI assistants, letting you ask questions about binaries in plain English and get instant, actionable insights.

Why Your Reverse Engineering Workflow Needs This

You're already spending hours in Ghidra analyzing binaries. You know the drill - open the decompiler, trace through function calls, identify crypto implementations, hunt for vulnerabilities. But what if you could ask "What encryption algorithms are used in this binary?" and get an immediate answer with specific addresses and code snippets?

GhidraMCP implements the Model Context Protocol to connect Ghidra directly with AI assistants like Claude. Instead of manually piecing together analysis patterns, you get AI-powered insights that understand your binary's structure, behavior, and potential security issues.

Concrete Productivity Gains

Natural Language Binary Analysis: Ask complex questions and get structured answers with specific addresses and code references. No more manual correlation between different Ghidra views.

Automated Security Pattern Detection: Built-in functions identify crypto implementations, obfuscated strings, user input sources, and API call sequences. The AI contextualizes these findings within your specific binary.

Intelligent Function Naming: Instead of manually renaming functions based on analysis, describe what they do and let the AI suggest appropriate names with context.

Call Graph Generation: Generate hierarchical call graphs with AI commentary on execution flow and potential attack paths.

Real-World Use Cases

Malware Analysis: "Show me all suspicious API calls and explain their purpose in the context of this malware sample." Get categorized API sequences with security implications.

Vulnerability Research: "Are there any potential buffer overflow vulnerabilities in this code?" The AI analyzes user input sources, buffer operations, and bounds checking.

Crypto Analysis: "Identify all cryptographic implementations and explain their security properties." Get detailed analysis of both standard and custom crypto code.

Reverse Engineering: "Explain the authentication mechanism in this program" with detailed walkthrough of the auth flow and potential bypasses.

Key Technical Features

The plugin provides 12 specialized analysis tools through MCP:

• Function Analysis: Retrieve detailed function info with optional decompilation
• Security Analysis: Extract API call sequences and identify user input sources
• Crypto Detection: Identify cryptographic patterns and implementations
• String Analysis: Find obfuscated strings and encoding schemes
• Memory Layout: Analyze imports, exports, and memory structure
• Call Graph Generation: Create hierarchical execution flow maps
• Interactive Renaming: Rename functions and data with AI suggestions

Integration Strategy

GhidraMCP runs as a socket server (default port 8765) that starts automatically with your Ghidra project. The Python bridge script handles MCP communication, so you can:

1. Load your binary in Ghidra normally
2. Ask AI questions through any MCP-compatible client
3. Get answers with specific addresses and code context
4. Apply suggested improvements directly in Ghidra

No workflow disruption - it enhances your existing Ghidra analysis rather than replacing it.

Getting Started

Prerequisites: Ghidra 11.2.1+, Java 17+, Python 3.8+

# Install the bridge
pip install FastMCP

# Configure your AI client (Claude example)
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ghidra": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["path/to/ghidra_server.py"]
    }
  }
}

Install the plugin through Ghidra's extension manager, enable it, and start analyzing with AI assistance.

Advanced Security Analysis

The specialized security functions give you immediate insights that typically require manual analysis:

• API Call Sequence Analysis: Understand what external functions are called and in what order
• User Input Source Identification: Find all entry points for external data
• Obfuscated String Detection: Locate strings hidden through XOR or character construction
• Cryptographic Pattern Recognition: Identify both standard algorithms and custom implementations

These tools don't just find patterns - they provide context about why they matter for your analysis.

Bottom Line

If you're doing binary analysis, this plugin turns your AI assistant into a knowledgeable reverse engineering partner. Instead of manually correlating Ghidra's output, you get intelligent analysis that understands both the technical details and the security implications.

The 55 GitHub stars and active development show this isn't just a proof of concept - it's a working tool that's already improving real analysis workflows.